Community dialog: North County

Public schools shouldn’t be billboards

I was stunned to read “Ads on campus being considered as moneymaker” (North County, May 20), regarding the consideration of using ads on public high school (never mind elementary and middle school) properties. As a parent of a junior at Torrey Pines High School (in a neighboring district), I feel compelled to register my concerns about [San Diego Unified] even considering such a move, never mind actually instituting it. Unlike the naming of professional sports stadiums, doing so in a public school setting places advertisements in a setting in which students are most vulnerable, when their minds are focused on education, not the thought issues presented by advertising, particularly for many teenagers who are at an impressionable period of their emotional development.

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I’m sure that some may argue that having the Ford Bronco (or even just Ford) Field is benign enough. I have my doubts that it is appropriate – again, this isn’t a commercial setting. Given the opportunity, I’m sure Google, Apple (the “iTunes Multimedia Center”), and Microsoft (the “Internet Explorer Administration Building”) would pay top dollar for the opportunity to advertise to students in a school setting in which the students would be confronted with the ads in the course of their daily changes in classrooms. Do today’s students really need more exposure to advertisements to stay on Facebook even longer than they do? Don’t they spend enough time already on the Facebook website? Perhaps there could be a Kotex (or Motrin) Girls Bathroom or a Trojans or Durex Boys Bathroom? (I suppose one might argue that promoting condom use as a means of addressing the HIV epidemic is desirable, but I don’t think these ads are what one may have in mind.) After all, if one is going to name an athletic field or other parts of the sports facilities (“Bike Athletic Supporters – when protection is a must” emblazoning the stands, or “Tampax: For when you have to keep your eye on the ball”), why not the bathrooms? Or perhaps an ad by Johnson and Johnson for Yaz or by auto insurers (“Allstate: Unlike Progressive Insurance, we won’t tell your parents when you exceed the speed limit!”). Perhaps an ad outside the bathrooms for Charmin? Or the McDonald’s Cafeteria? Or even the local mall (“The Del Mar Highlands – when you and your friends just need to get away from your family – or your teachers”).

Some of these ads may seem benign enough, but that doesn’t make the concept any more tolerable. Make no mistake: I’m not talking about ads for drug paraphernalia shops or medical marijuana agricultural practices seminars or Jack Daniel’s, Southern Comfort, etc. There is also the issue of government censorship in adjudicating which ads are acceptable and which are not, but that’s a matter for another time.

As distressing as this situation may be for me as a parent, it is equally disturbing as a citizen. What message are we sending to our youth when they are confronted with ads in their places of learning? Is it that everything, including even selected aspects of their education, is now for sale to the highest bidder in the United States? If I were back in high school, that’s certainly one of the messages it would have conveyed to me. Do we really need to do something which will promote cynicism among our high schoolers?